George Pal - Part 1

Whereas the world of Star Trek is set in a future with existing modes of space travel, the fifties sci-fi dramas of producer/director George Pal either took place in the present day, or jumped ahead to a fuzzy future where things looked contemporary, but somehow we humans managed to put up a big space donut in Earth’s orbit.

Pal’s origins lay in a series Puppetoons shorts before he hedged his bets with director Irving Pichel and made a family film about a squirrel – The Great Rupert – and the 2001: A Space Odyssey of the fifties, Destination Moon. Both were made in 1950, but it’s the space film that ignited a Technicolor interest in what man could do with rocket fuel and the industrial machine at full throttle.

Destination wasn’t as abstract and head-scratching as 2001 – the plot was basically a bunch of guys going rogue and flying off to the moon – but the special effects were revolutionary and still look impressive (at least when you can’t see the studio lights reflected in the helmet visors). Pal’s film also has a unique angle involving the relationship between military and private industry, which makes it more intriguing that your average fifties space exploration drama.

Destination was followed by When Worlds Collide (1951) and the amazing War of the Worlds (1953) – both to be reviewed shortly – and the space quartet more or less ended with Conquest of Space (1955), the lesser of the lot for a number of reasons that include dreadful dialogue, familiar plot points, and a religious zealot you really wish would get socked in the nose and shut up.

These films are very much rooted in the fears and hopes of the fifties, as well as a kind of idealism that’s just not present in contemporary sci-fi, but there is a common view that sometimes we go too far, and the risks may be too great for the spacemen as well as the human race.

Conquest has more sophisticated effects than Destination, and that may be due to the influence of MGM’s own Forbidden Planet (1953), which stretched out craft landings and takeoffs into gorgeous montages. Conquest has some beautiful shots of spinning planets, and there’s an asteroid sequence that must have looked awesome on the big screen.

Destination is in dire need of a real restoration, and the bulk of Pal’s other productions (mostly for Paramount) deserve the same, as was done for War of the Worlds. If Paramount has any foresight, they should use the eventual DVD release of the new Star Trek to exploit their sci-fi catalogue, if not their George Pal films (and that includes the Puppetoons) because in spite of the hokiness and fanciful concepts of the future, the Pal films are landmarks of the genre that deserve to be seen in the best possible state, and worn prints with hazy colours on the current DVDs just don’t do it.

The other major component in the success of these films is the work of Cheseley Bonestell, whose matte paintings (see top of this post) are truly hypnotic. The vivid details and haunting images of desolate planets and moons were integral to the mood of Pal’s films, and Bonestell later produced his own series, Men Into Space (1959-1960) which apparently ran for a season before disappearing from TV. That’s another rarity in need of a proper DVD release.

This is what the home video industry does best: exploit like-minded or similar-styled titles languishing on the shelves when a major hit is in the consciousness of fans and enthusiasts.

Instead of repackaging and reissuing, focus on a bit of restoration and rescuing.

It’s good karma, you know.



- MRH

Parisian sci-fi

Although one can trace story elements and some concepts to better-known and more elaborately produced sci-fi films, Julien Leclercq's Chrysalis (Anchor Bay/Starz) is still worth a peek for the look to which I'm admittedly biased - clean, lean futuristic architecture that might not look like the kind of building you'd call home, but looks great in widescreen and an icy blue/chilly grey/sterile white colour scheme. You know, like the modern designs showcased in architecture porn magazines.

That isn't meant as a demeaning shot at Chrysalis, because what director Leclercq also accomplishes is making use of and incorporating architecture and set decor as a secondary character. There's nothing worse than seeing glimpses of beautiful sets and buildings without getting a sense of what it's like inside, and perhaps because of the film's modest budget, no corner or pane of glass is wasted.

And the sets are quite stunning for their efficiency, modesty, and clean design, which never come off as pretentious. One can believe these are the kind of edifices that would be built in Paris, while the most beloved old buildings and bridges are left alone.

The only area where perhaps things a bit too far-fetched is an operation scene wherein a doctor (played by Marthe Keller) uses a hologram to guide robots to fix a young child's busted up heart. Maybe this comes from watching too many medical dramas over a decade or two, but like any artisan, even doctors must like feeling real organs, and while non-invasive surgery is the ultimate goal, I'm sure once in a while human hands can do a better job simply because some things involve getting a feel for what's right instead of what look right through a digital peephole.

Minor digression in what's an approving nod to Leclercq. Really.



- MRH

When the pick-axe falls far from the mark

Patrick Lussier’s My Bloody Valentine should give a reason for all those writers to pause and rethink rebooting/remaking/re-imagining perfectly fine originals and perhaps motivate them to just make their own slasher classic, but there’s something about a brand name that makes a remake more likely to enjoy a green light from the studio than a wholly new idea or derivation.

There’s also the home video aspect where the production studio probably owns the original film (or at least the current video rights), so there’s that tie-in factor using the new film to sell copies of the old on DVD, and the new film on DVD to create interest in the next 3D or similar genre production.

It’s totally natural from a business stance to exploit your most recognizable assets, but when there’s a weak script at the core, it's foolish to rely on special effects and gimmicks to keep viewers glued to the screen.

Lionsgate’s DVD includes both flat and 3D versions of My Bloody Valentine (with 4 pairs of 3D glasses), as well as a second disc of featurettes and deleted material, and while it's a good package, there’s still the issue of the film, which is addressed in the DVD review.

Note: the 3D version is on the B-side of Disc 1 in Maple’s Canadian release, and the Blu-ray edition does not include a standard DVD version of the film – that’s a misprint on the front sticker that’ll be clarified in the next pressing. The movies and extras, though, are fine.



- MRH

Look / Izzie gonna die?

Just uploaded is a review of Adam Rifkin's Look (2007), a clever drama that follows a handful of characters using surveillance camera footage before everything kind of converges in an elaborate finale.

Rifkin's best-known films include The Chase and Detroit Rock City (as well as the script for Mouse Hunt), but with Look he daringly attempts to tell multiple stories using fixed camera placements and footage mimicking multiple grades of video stock (such as clean digital footage, fuzzy black & white, and grubby 3/4"). Anchor Bay's DVD includes a wealth of deleted scenes and a great commentary track, and is reviewed HERE.

As for Thursday's Grey's Anatomy season finale, it's clear the cliffhanger leaves the door open for characters Izzie and O'Malley to survive, assuming the actors still want to return to a series where their roles are virtually meaningless.

SPOILER BELOW

In the last five minutes, Izzie went limp in her hubby's arms, and a facially wrecked O'Malley remained in a downward spiral on the operating table before the end credit slammed this season shut.

Izzie could come back, but then her arc would involve cancer recovery, which robs her of the chance to return quickly as a surgeon, and wouldn't give actress Katherine Heigl much to do beyond being mad/frustrated/enmeshed in marital bickering with her pushy husband Alex Karev when not acting out her character's physical and mental recovery.

O'Malley has a slim chance at returning in a wholly new life, though as a colleague theorized, the character could be recast with a new actor whose face becomes the New O'Malley after major facial reconstruction. During his recuperation, he could befriend the girl whose life he saved, but then his character would mimic the storyline wherein Karev fixed the face of an amnesiac woman with whom he eventually fell in love. Bad idea all around.

Nope. Izzie and George gotta die. They could not be saved by the gang. End of story.

Next up: DVD reviews of My Bloody Valentine 3D, and The Chrysalis.



- MRH

Izzie Gotta Die

A bit of a preamble. Somewhere around Tuesday of this week, this blog – an Editor's Blog – was branded as spam by Blogger's word robots, and a warning was posted to respond to the claim within two days or see this entire blog evaporate within 20 days. There was no room to type any reply; just send a request to have the blog evaluated by a human, in case the robots made a “false positive.”

Happily, the deletion order was rescinded, but seriously: spam? Exactly what triggered the word-bots to auto-generate the kill order is a mystery, but it's kind of insulting to be lumped with the binary detritus I block daily in my mailbox. There's never been mention of male emboldening pills, designer watches, diplomas, doomed bank accounts, Nigerian financial crises, or below-the-belt toys in this daily series of blathering, nor misuse of the term boobies, so I don't get it. I'm glad the kill order's been fixed, but there's something eerie about being anonymously threatened prior to human intervention. That ain't the way a webhost should behave.

Nuff said.

This week is season finale time, and Wednesday meant we who follow Lost would learn some needed factoids before the whole mystery is resolved in the 2009-2010 TV season. Was the finale satisfying? Yes. Did it explain the four-toed statue? No, BUT we did learn that Jacob lives in a pseudo-Egyptian foot.

We also learned that everyone has been touched in some way by Jacob prior to the group taking that Oceanic flight to Bermuda Triangle Hell, and that the older interracial couple are still alive and well. One supporting cast member died (although she too could return next year if the big kaboom not only reset time but flipped her back to being a gynecologist somewhere on the continental United States), and another cast mate lay dying because he was largely useless (although it's a good thing his familiarity with military electronica included rigging an atomic bomb to blow on impact).

Lost seems to have gotten rid of some deadwood, although the flashback structure always leaves the door open for a return, given there were two major time portals at play, separated by a thirty year gap. There was also Jack's reasoning for blowing up the shaft (he luv Kate) that seemed kind of feeble, but the finale was a genuinely magnetic event.

What lies ahead for the cast of Grey's Anatomy is something else, because that show is one that has been tumbling into that danger zone because everyone in the cast has affected another in virtual every conceivable way, leaving little innovative storylines left to tackle.

I call it the Dallas Syndrome, because within a few years, every affair, divorce, illegitimate child and double-cross on that show had been done – leaving nothing to experience except retreads or variants via new characters.

The nadir or extreme of the formula actually happens quite often on daytime soaps, but on a prime time level, nothing was better/worse than Dynasty/The Colbys, wherein Fallon Carrington Colby (Pamela Sue Martin) was abducted by aliens in a flying saucer designed by Star War's John Dykstra. That idea, as well as more lost/illegitimate children and affairs and re-affairs, was pulled from the asses of the show's screenwriters who knew there was nothing left for the show's characters to do except get weirder, sleazier, or meet aliens.

Grey's Anatomy ain't there, but it's now in Little Rascals terrain, where the Whole Gang at Seattle Grace are banding together to save a character that became irrelevant two years ago (or was it three?).

She's one of us. She's our own. We have to save her. She's family.

Nuh-uhn.

Izzie gotta die because she has no function in the series beyond a few cutaways for minor humorous moments, and contractual fulfillments for actress Katherine Heigl. When Izzie got the millions and established the Denny Duquette clinic, that was the beginning of her demise, because as a caretaker of cuts, bruises and burps of poor folk, there was a lack of sexy trauma. Dragging her into a few emergency procedures (like triaging a deer) were her only career highlights, and the writers, whether due to Heigl's desire to leave the show for big screen ventures or not, decided to give her cancer, and drag back the character of Denny as a ghost who was revealed to be a vision caused by her brain tumor.

Really?

So if we trace back a few episodes into this season, Izzy's tumor not only made Denny exist again and perform great sex, but reason within Izzy's brain: see, she kept asking him why he was here, and his response was “I'm here for you,” which she later discovered/reasoned was as an agent of the Angel of Death to tell her something bad's going on inside her physical vessel.

Really? Cancer helps you create an alter-ego in the form of a dead lover with whom you can argue, copulate, and learn you're physically ill?

Having not yet seen how the two-hour finale this Thursday evening will end, I'm still standing by my stance that Izzie gotta die. I liked her character, but she's irrelevant, and has to. More on the finale in tomorrow's blog (unless the bots think I'm an agent of the ABC network).

Tomorrow I'll also post a review of Adam Rifkin's underrated drama Look (2007), but while I'm on the topic of the Idiot Box, I'd like to congratulate CTV for going HD. They've already run a noontime report on how awesome the local news will be with its new anchor set, new backdrop of a bluey T.O. panorama, and widescreen framing for HD sets. The daily bumpers have started in the ad breaks, and we should all be excited the same banal news larded with charity pleas, anchors in tracksuits, insipid 'My Toronto' vignettes and talking head shots of daily news will be wider and clearer.

The question is will it be more relevant in HD? I think not.



- MRH